10 Things Your Kindergarten Student Wants You to Know

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This post has been on my heart for sometime. As a teacher who has taught multiple grades, I really do feel that Kindergarten is really its own world. Kindergarten is often inside elementary schools and expected to be just that – elementary. However, Kindergarten students are NOT elementary students yet. In remembering that early learners might need a little extra care and a little extra patience, I came up with 10 things that I believe your Kindergarten student wants you to know!

Early learners need a little extra care and patience, so I came up with 10 things that I believe your Kindergarten student wants you to know!

10 Things Your Kindergarten Student Wants You to Know

Kindergarten is still early childhood, and at the beginning of the year, preschool. I imagine often what my students wish for, want, and need from me as their teacher. In my time with them, if I were to guess, these are the 10 things they would want me or you (the teacher) to know:

1. I am only 5. I might turn 6, but I am still young. Let me be little.

2. I cannot sit down criss-cross or in a chair for very long. Please let me move.

3. I am learning the best I can. I might not be ready to read or write so much yet, but I am trying. Pushing me to go further and further will not help if I am not ready.

4. I need to play. For more than just recess. Please let me play.

5. I miss my parents sometimes. Please comfort me when I do.

6. I don’t always understand why I have to share or follow directions. Please be patient with me while I am learning. I may have not been to any school before now.

7. I am probably giving you the best that I have, even if it may not seem like it.

8. You may be my first school teacher. You are special to me and I look up to you. Please set a good example and care for me in return.

9. I like to sing, run, jump, play, and move. Please let me learn this way sometimes.

10. I am curious about so many things. Let me ask questions, even if I ask them a lot. I am just curious. After all, I am only 5.

I would love to hear if you have anything to add to this list. School is such a special place, and taking the time to learn from our Kindergarten students is sometimes just as important as them learning from us.

Alex
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23 Comments

  1. You have a gift for words! I love reading and learning from you. Although I taught at many levels earlier in my teaching experience, these last 20 years in Kindergarten are my most cherished. There is something very special about these little ones who walk, jump, hop, skip, etc. through the door every morning excited to learn something new. You put into words what I feel every morning I greet them at the door.
    Thank you!! Thank you!!

    1. Thank you so much Diana! This comment slipped away from me and I didn’t get a chance to reply to you, but I so, so appreciate your kind words. Isn’t teaching a special thing? Kindergartners (and all kids) are so special and it is awesome that we get to be their teachers! πŸ™‚ I hope you have an amazing summer!

  2. Loving 4,5,and 6. I think sometimes, in the desire to get kids to meet the standards that have been set, teachers forget the need for little ones to move throughout the day. And, unfortunately, in my daughter’s kindergarten class recess was often taken away if they were too fidgety in class time.
    Kindergarten teachers have one of the toughest jobs because they are dealing with little ones that may not have been away from mom/dad before for long periods of time. And most do a wonderful job.

    1. Hi Christina! I totally agree – movement is SO important, and recess is absolutely necessary! πŸ™‚

  3. Would it be okay to make these statements into small posters to remind me, a new to “kinder” teacher about the children’s abilities?

    1. Hi Elisa! So glad you find this post helpful. If you want to type up/design your own posters for personal use that is totally fine. πŸ™‚ I just ask that you please not take the words of this post or make them into printables to sell or give away freely for download elsewhere on the internet. But personal use is totally fine! I think reminder posters sound great – perhaps I should consider adding some to this post as a download. Thanks for your question and for taking the time to ask, I really appreciate that so much!

  4. 10 things your Special Needs Student wants you to know:
    1). I like to have fun just like every other child, please include me too.
    2). I might be nonverbal, but that doesn’t mean I’m not smart, I just have no way of telling you what I’m thinking.
    3). Being nonverbal can be very frustrating, please try to understand if I get mad, have meltdowns or am sad.
    4). My parents have fought for me and advocated for me since birth. They have had to learn multiple areas of medical terminology that many doctors don’t even know. Please listen to them about my health needs, no one knows me better than they do.
    5). Please keep an extra eye on me around other kids, I might not be able to tell you if I’m being picked on or bullied.
    6). Please love on me a little, being Special Needs is hard sometimes, I just need comforted & reassured.
    7). If you notice no one playing with me, could you find me a buddy to play with. Sometimes people (even kids) avoid what they don’t understand, use this opportunity to teach my playmates that I’m not scary or weird.
    8). I can’t help who I am, I just want to be accepted for who I am.
    9). How other children interact with me in my early years will determine how they treat all Special Needs people in the future. You can play a roll in teaching others to be comfortable around me.
    10). I will be your biggest challenge but your greatest reward.

    1. Lori! This is beautiful!! Will you please email me at alex AT thekindergartenconnection.com? I would love to ask for your permission to post this (giving you credit as the author) – it is wonderful and would be a great addition to the Kindergarten post. Hope to talk with you soon! Thanks for adding this – even here as a comment it is so meaningful!

  5. I'm not a teacher, but in my experience with my daughter and others in her pre-k class (some of whom are 5 and starting kinder next fall), along with other friends' kids at kinder level, I would add that sometimes they need a moment to themselves as they are still learning to express their emotions.

  6. This is perfect! I would add that K teachers should be loving and make their children feel heard. They love to SHARE — ALL THE TIME! haha πŸ™‚ But, my #1 criteria for my children's future teachers is that they will be loving.

  7. I would love for my grandson's Kindergarten teacher to read this, since she seems to expect perfection in my 5 yr old grandson's handwriting. I don't know if the administrators are requiring it, but it's just down right sad!

    1. It definitely depends on school districts and admin requirements . I am very blessed to be in an amazing school district where I have a lot of freedom and am trusted to do what is best for my kinders. I hope that your grandson doesn't feel too much pressure and that if his teacher is having pressure put on her that it goes away! πŸ™ Handwriting will develop over time – in kinder it is an introduction and about letter formation (in my opinion) and the neatness develops over time – but it takes time! Best to you!

    1. πŸ™‚ Someone else mentioned printing it too and I thought I would do that as well – I should actually make a poster version I think! Maybe we could hand it out to admin at back to school – ha! πŸ™‚

  8. This made my heart flutter. There are too many days that I forget a lot of these because admins are pushing me in a different direction. I need to stomp my foot a bit harder and throw a tantrum for my kinder-bears to just let them be little a bit longer. Thank you for a wonderful reminder post.

    1. I love the visions of tons of kinder teachers stomping their feet in tantrums! YES! lol sometimes I think that is what needs to be done! I am so glad you stopped by and I am glad you like the post!

    1. Hi Jennifer! I totally agree about that! I have taught up through 3rd grade (loved them because they were my students, but I am good not going back to that age haha) and it's so true that kinders honestly don't know better a lot of the time. It is such a huge year of social growth!

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